- Italy: Seven Arrested Over Anarchist Network Linked to Winter Olympics Rail Sabotage
Source: US News & World Report
“Italian police have arrested seven people accused of belonging to an anarchist militant network and carrying out sabotage on a high-speed railway line during the Winter Olympics in February. In a statement on Tuesday, police said a judge had ordered five suspects to be held in prison and two placed under house arrest. The charges include terrorist association and subversion of the democratic order. Police said two of those arrested were accused of taking part in a February 14 attack on the Rome-Florence high-speed rail line. According to investigators, the sabotage was carried out using improvised explosive devices, causing severe damage to infrastructure estimated at €455,000 ($528,000). The attack led to train delays of more than an hour during the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, which ran from February 6 to 22.” (06/16/26)
- UN-backed court opens trial of former Central African Republic president Bozizé
Source: Seattle Times
“A U.N.-backed court in the Central African Republic on Tuesday opened the trial of former President François Bozizé, who is accused of crimes against humanity for abuses committed by members of his security forces between 2009 and 2013. The trial is the sixth held by the Special Criminal Court, a tribunal created in 2015 with U.N. support to prosecute serious crimes committed during the country’s conflicts. …Prosecutors accuse Bozizé of being responsible as a military commander for crimes committed by members of his presidential guard and other security forces, including ‘murder, enforced disappearance, torture, rape and other inhumane acts.’ Bozizé, 79, is being tried in absentia. He has been living in exile in Guinea-Bissau since 2023, and authorities there have refused to extradite him despite an international arrest warrant issued by the court in 2024.” (06/16/26)
- Romania: PM-designate loses party support as political crisis deepens
Source: Politico
“Romania’s latest prime minister-designate failed to secure the backing of his own party on Tuesday, impeding the path to forming a new government. Adrian Veștea — a former mayor, county council president and development minister from the center-right National Liberal Party (PLN) — was announced on Sunday as Romanian President Nicușor Dan’s second prime minister-designate in two weeks, after previous candidate Eugen Tomac failed to win enough support to form a technocratic government. But on Monday evening, PNL chair and former Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan — who was forced from office when the government collapsed in May — announced that his party would not support Veștea as he seeks to form a governing coalition in Romania’s parliament. … Veștea is expected to rely on dissident PNL lawmakers to reach the parliamentary majority needed to form a government. But Bolojan has also threatened to expel PNL lawmakers who vote for Veștea.” (06/16/26)
- China: Economy weakens further in May as retail sales post first drop in over three years
Source: CNBC
“China’s retail sales fell for the first time in more than three years in May while urban investment contracted more than expected, piling pressure on Beijing to roll out meaningful stimulus to spur consumption, even as de-escalation in Middle East tensions offers some near-term relief. Retail sales, a gauge of consumption, declined in May for the first time since December 2022, dropping 0.6% from a year earlier, according to the National Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday. The Labor Day holiday at the start of May failed to offset sluggish consumer spending, with Beijing scaling back trade-in subsidies earlier this year. The sales contraction was a surprise as economists polled by Reuters had estimated flat growth.” (06/15/26)
- India: Regime blocks Telegram over “medical entrance exam fraud” concerns
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“India blocked access to Telegram messenger on Tuesday ahead of a retest of a nationwide medical college entrance examination, after a scandal last month over a question paper leak. The failure of the hugely competitive exam, along with a separate marking fiasco in high school tests, sparked outrage and fuelled youth protests demanding the education minister’s resignation. The Ministry of Electronics issued the order restricting access to Telegram until June 22, the day of the retest. Message-editing features, which allow users to alter existing posts, will remain restricted until June 30.” (06/16/26)
- FL: Mm shoots man accused of breaking into home, threatening family
Source: WFTV 9 News
“A Flagler County mother shot a man who deputies said forced his way into her home and threatened her and her two children. … Deputies said the homeowner called 911 around 1:50 p.m. and reported that she had shot a man who entered her home. When deputies arrived, they found blood at the scene, but the man and his vehicle were gone, according to the sheriff’s office. Detectives later identified the man as Michael McDonald, 33, of Palm Coast. According to deputies, McDonald knew the homeowner but showed up at the house uninvited and unexpected. The sheriff’s office said McDonald lifted open the garage door, left the garage, banged on a back window and then entered the home through the front door. … The woman repeatedly ordered McDonald to leave and warned him she would shoot, according to the sheriff’s office. Deputies said McDonald kept advancing toward her. That’s when the woman fired one shot, hitting McDonald in the arm, investigators said.” (06/15/26)
- How to Say No to an Imperial President
Source: Foreign Policy
by Julian E Zelizer“Trump’s expansion of executive power would make even Richard Nixon blush.” (06/16/26)
- The King’s Rubber Empire: Democracy at Home, Terror in the Jungle
Source: Antiwar.com
by Michael Holmes“First published in 1999 and updated in a revised 2006 edition, Hochschild’s King Leopold’s Ghost serves as a stark historical warning at a time when Western politicians and commentators habitually frame global politics as an epic struggle between virtuous democracies and barbarous autocracies. The book shows in forensic detail how one of Europe’s most constitutional monarchies oversaw a regime of forced labor, mutilation, rape, torture and mass death on a scale comparable to the worst atrocities of the twentieth century.” (06/16/26)
- Fiscal Dominance and the Politicization of Money
Source: EconLog
by Leonida Zelmanovitz‘Much of the contemporary debate about monetary policy focuses on technical questions: whether reserves should be scarce or abundant, whether fintech companies should have master accounts at the Federal Reserve, whether those accounts should resemble the accounts held by banks, or how far the Fed’s independence should extend. These are not unimportant questions. Yet these questions are secondary to the central issue shaping American monetary policy today: the fiscal needs of the federal government.” (06/16/26)
https://www.econlib.org/econlog/fiscal-dominance-and-the-politicization-of-money
- 1776 All-Stars: Why George Mason Is Extremely Underrated
Source: Reason
by Ilya Somin“George Mason was not the greatest, the most admirable, or the most influential of the Founding Fathers. But he made enormous contributions that are often underrated. And I’m not saying that just because I teach at the university named after him. Mason was the principal drafter of the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights, which became a key model for the other state constitutional bills of rights, and eventually for the federal Bill of Rights. Later, he was one of three members of the Constitutional Convention who refused to sign the document. Afterward he opposed ratification. Not all his objections to the Constitution were sound, but several were compelling and prescient.” (for publication 07/26)
- Radio Free Europe, the Cold War “Weapon” Congress Still Funds
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Patrick Pillow“More than three decades after the Cold War ended, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty remains in operation — and Congress is now considering a major increase in its funding. As Americans continue to grapple with rising prices and persistent inflation, Washington DC’s attention has increasingly shifted toward foreign policy priorities rather than domestic economic concerns. When foreign spending does enter the public conversation, it is often through provisions buried deep within legislative text and only briefly summarized in committee reports, with limited public attention.” (06/16/26)
- The MAGA power struggle that could decide the fate of Anthropic
Source: Understanding AI
by Timothy B Lee“Anthropic stunned the AI world on Friday by announcing it was revoking access to Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5, the powerful new models it released just three days earlier. The government, Anthropic said, had ‘issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States.’ Because Anthropic doesn’t have a way to limit access to Americans, this amounted to a de facto ban on the technology.” (06/15/26)
https://www.understandingai.org/p/the-maga-power-struggle-that-could
- The online “safety” trap
Source: The Eternally Radical Idea
by Greg Lukianoff“I am not a social media utopian. As regular ERI readers and FIRE supporters will know, I co-authored The Coddling of the American Mind with social psychologist Jon Haidt. In that book, we argued that overprotection was making young people more anxious, fragile, and less prepared for adult life. I also happen to think that the phone-based childhood has been a bad bargain for many kids, and that phones should be out of schools entirely. But that does not mean governments should build a national identity-checking system for the internet, give government a foot in the door for controlling artificial intelligence, or create broad new liabilities that pressure platforms to suppress lawful expression in the name of protecting minors.” (06/15/26)
- Trump Celebrates Achieving Absolutely Nothing in Iran
Source: The Intercept
by Nick TurseThe Trump administration is boasting about pending plans to conclude its war with Iran, having achieved none of the original objectives laid out by President Donald Trump. … If the deal is signed on this week, it will mark a return to the status quo antebellum when the Strait of Hormuz was open and no nuclear deal with Iran was in place. Aside from killing top regime leaders, thousands of civilians — including more than 150, most of them children, on a strike on an elementary school — and damaging almost 149,000 civilian infrastructures, the United States has functionally achieved nothing. The same regime is in power and it maintains missile capabilities, still has a navy, and still supports regional proxies.” (06/15/26)
- Quantum Vibe, 06/15/26
Source: Big Head Press
by Scott BieserCartoon. (06/15/26)
- California Forces Venture Capitalists into DEI Regime
Source: Independent Institute
by K Lloyd Billingsley“A California law requiring venture capital firms to report the race, gender, and sexual orientation of the companies they fund is being challenged in federal court, the California Globe reports. Attorneys for the Colorado-based 1517 Fund contend that the law is unconstitutional. Californians can make a case that the measure also violates the spirit of a state law the people approved in 1996.” (06/15/26)
- Advisory Opinions, 06/16/26
Source: The Dispatch
“The Trump Administration’s Internal Arguments Over Habeas Corpus.” (06/16/26)
- The Corbett Report, episode 504
- Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 06/15/26
Source: Antiwar.com
“Israeli Officials Say No Lebanon Withdrawal, Vance: US-Iran MoU Has Been Signed Digitally, and More.” (06/15/26)
- Trump Watch, 06/15/26
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
“Time for Soul-Searching.” (06/15/26)
- Parallax Views w/ JG Michael, 06/15/26
Source: Parallax Views w/ JG Michael
“Iran’s Strategic Thinking: A View from Inside Iran w/ Peiman Salehi.” (06/15/26)